November 18, 2024      4:11 PM

Budget priorities start taking shape in private Texas House workgroups

Lt. Gov. Patrick may very well lose his bid to topple Speaker Phelan. But lobbyists working across a range of issues have said that the instability in the House is already empowering the Senate: “At least we know who the players will be.” So, the House is using the working group model to try to stay ahead of the game

Amid the ongoing campaign to destabilize the Texas House including fresh reports from members that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been privately making calls to Republican legislators urging them to endorse “anybody but Dade” in the scheduled December House GOP Caucus meeting, lawmakers have been talking behind closed doors about policy and spending priorities. Patrick has angrily denied supporting any specific candidate for speaker, by the way.

Before the election, Speaker Dade Phelan’s Chief of Staff Mike Toomey announced that nearly a supermajority of House members “split evenly between Republicans and Democrats have signed up to participate in policy working groups, roll up their sleeves and work in advance of the session.”

In at least a few of the meetings of the House working groups so far, lawmakers have discussed budget priorities for the coming session in broad strokes, Quorum Report has learned.

By Scott Braddock

Copyright November 18, 2024, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved